


Short Fate Fics from My Blog

by Kestrealbird



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Asexual Character, Ficlet, Fionn refusing to give straight answers, Fluff, Introspection, Multi, Romance, ace vent fic, quiet conversation, scathach just really loves carmilla
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:27:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22337785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestrealbird/pseuds/Kestrealbird
Summary: What the title says
Relationships: Achilles | Rider of Red/Patroclus | Lancer, Scathach | Lancer/Carmilla | Assassin
Comments: 12
Kudos: 44





	1. I Asked

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking a lot about Fionn recently and I won't go into all my reasons about how DW fucked up his character but if anyone has seen my blog (teatitty) on tumblr you probably know about those posts lol
> 
> Anyway! This was actually inspired by some convos I've had on my blog about Fionn and Diarmuid so I thought "hey why not post it here?" I also have a longer fic in the works for them but who knows when I'll finish it lol

“How did you -” Ritsuka starts to say, biting his lip to stop himself from simply blurting out the first thing he could think of. Fionn watches him with patience, smiling encouragingly - moments like this remind Ritsuka that Fionn was a father himself. “How did you manage to...get Diarmuid to protect humans from -” he gestures awkwardly, unsure how to explain.

Fionn inclines his head slightly with a hum, and his fingers tap against the bannister he’s leaning over. “I asked.”

“You...asked?” That sounds far too simple an explanation. Surely it hadn’t been that easy? For Diarmuid to side with humans just because someone asked sounded, well, strange, even for him.

“Indeed,” Fionn says. “I won’t pretend it was an easy choice for him but. Well, it’s not my place to explain his feelings on the subject.” His face turns wistful, as though he’s remembering something.

Ritsuka contemplates asking about it, but he feels like it’d be rude so he doesn’t. Fionn hasn’t - hasn’t really answered his question, exactly, so much as he’s with-held the full scope of the story. Ritsuka doesn’t mind all that much. He’s learned, over time, that the heroes and legends of old have their own secrets they wish to keep, and he’s happy enough to let them.

Instead he says, “I never would’ve guessed he wasn’t human.”

Fionn barks a laugh. “I’m pretty sure that’s the whole point of wearing a glamour in the first place, isn’t it?”

Ritsuka supposes that’s true. Still, even Merlin and Chiron don’t quite hide themselves as much as Diarmuid does. He mentions as much. Fionn’s smile makes his eyes glitter. Ritsuka blushes, looking down at his hands.

“If you knew him as well as I do,” Fionn replies, “then you’d know that his glamour only exists on the surface. His actual thought process is...more in-line with his divine heritage, in truth.”

Ritsuka frowns. “How so?”

“He finds it hard to understand human mortality.”

“He does?” Ritsuka can’t help his surprise. Diarmuid has always acted - seemed - the most human out of all the inhuman Servants that Ritsuka has met.

Fionn looks away from him, then, letting out a breath. “His kind can live for centuries upon centuries and never show signs of getting older. Nothing but outside interference can kill them, you see, and humans are. A lot more fragile, in that regard.”

Oh.

He’d never thought about it like that before - about how it must feel to know you’ll probably outlive everyone around you. Ritsuka can’t imagine it; the idea doesn’t connect in his head, and trying to make it only makes him more frustrated, so he stops, shaking his head to clear his thoughts.

“That still doesn’t explain why he wears it to begin with though,” Ritsuka says.

“Mm, well,” Fionn laughs quietly, “that isn’t what you asked, now is it?”

Ritsuka has the sneaking suspicion that Fionn wouldn’t tell him anyway. There’s a lot of things Fionn won’t tell him, mostly because he hasn’t learned how to ask the right questions yet.

Fionn’s answers leave him more puzzled than he was to begin with. He opens his mouth to ask something else - something a little more personal about Fionn himself - but when he looks up, Fionn is gone, and only a note remains in his place.

_Get some rest, unless you want Da Vinci to scold you again._


	2. Scarmilla Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I will die for this rarepair and if no-one else makes content than I will

Carmilla’s skin was cold. This was simply a facet of her life - an irreversible thing that came with vampirism. Her skin did not hold the same lonely cold as Ereshkigal’s nor did it have the deathly chill that settled on Diarmuid like a blanket of ice. No, her coldness was somewhere inbetween life and death, for she could still feel the warmth of blood in her veins even if the icy winds of winter did little to concern her.

Carmilla liked to think herself as cold as her skin - a voice like glistening ice and a heart frozen in snow. A person who had committed such monstrous acts as her own was sure to be cold, inside and out. Scathach, however, begged to differ.

Scathach had met many people in her life - cold, warm, hot, a mix of two or three at once. Carmilla was a mix of the three. Her skin was cold, yes, Scathach would not deny her that, but her temperament was warm, for she loved dogs and had once cried when given a puppy to hold, and she had an enormous patience when dealing with Scathach’s own self-depricating moods.

She ran hot at night, when Scathach was between her legs, her breasts, her lips. Carmilla blushed scarlet down to her shoulders whenever Scathach laced their fingers together during such passionate nights. 

Carmilla did not like children, and that was cold of her, but she tolerated them for Scathach, and that was warm of her. She was not shy in her affections and that was hot and heavy of her. 

Scathach would never describe Carmilla as cold, nor warm, nor hot. She would describe her, instead, as such: “the woman whom I love, for she taught me how to live.”


	3. Normalcy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin wishes he was normal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is just me venting my own asexual experiences through Merlin. It also briefly touches on Arturia having body dysmorphia because she's trans in this and canon can fight me on that. I have a longer fic planned for Ace! Merlin in the future but I just needed to get this out in the meantime

Merlin will never understand wanting intimacy. Oh, he understands wanting children and a wife or husband, with a nice house in a nice neighbourhood, with friends and family and a wooden fence and a big garden. He sees it in people’s dreams all the time - that perfect wonderful life that's always just slightly out of reach. 

He understands reproduction, but sex, as a form of intimacy and pleasure, is foreign to him. He has given up trying to explain his reasonings. Even the Knights, for all their open-mindedness, don’t understand this part of him.

“But you’re an incubus,” they’ll say, and the words aren’t cruel, not exactly, but they sting all the same and every polite smile after that ends up just a tiny bit sharper than before. 

Merlin has never felt more broken than in those moments. Sometimes Merlin forgets that, for all that the Knights feel like family, their experiences are still wildly different from his own, and their perspectives are infuriatingly human. It doesn’t matter that Arturia and Kay like men and women both, or that Tristan’s gender fluctuates with his mood.

The point, Merlin has learned, is that they all want sex, eventually, and he does not and that confuses them and it alienates him in a way nothing else ever has. 

(“I hate this body,” Arturia tells him once, in a rare moment of anger.

“I know,” Merlin says, and he wishes he could give her what she wants, but he can’t, because that would put her in more danger than she already is.

Arturia’s tears run hot down her face. Merlin resists the urge to recoil from them. “I just want to be touched,” she nearly sobs, and Merlin says nothing at all. He doesn’t understand.)

He’s pursued many people before, in the sense of flirting and kissing and holding hands, but it never, ever lasts. Sex is always the endgame, and though he has tried - gods how he’s tried - to engage with it if only for his partner’s sake, it always leaves him feeling sicker, and he can never go any further than fleeting touches to someones sturnum.

They act like it’s because he doesn’t like them. The truth is that he simply doesn’t _desire_ in the same vein as the rest. Some take it better than others. Ultimately, however, it ends with him leaving and taking solace in isolated loneliness.

Sir Kay sneers, “you’re worse than me,” but what he _means_ is “at least I’m honest about my intentions.”

And that's the thing, isn’t it? Merlin is an incubus, and incubi thrive on sex, so surely that means he must as well. Nevermind that he gets his fill through emotions instead, and nevermind that he tore his own wings out years ago in a self-hating fit of rage and grief. Nevermind that the scars have never healed, that his back is an ugly display of weakness.

“You’re an incubus,” is as much damnation and judgement as it is simple fact. He’s learned to hate the phrase almost as much as he hates himself.

When all is said and done, Merlin locks himself away in his tower, convinced that he is broken beyond repair, and Cath Palug lets their fur be stained with his tears.

“Selfish,” Merlin says, his voice shattered across the letters. “There’s nothing to cry over.”

But there is and he knows it. Cath Palug licks away his tears, their tongue an odd sensation of rough and smooth in equal measure, and Merlin laughs at how it tickles. Cath Palug purrs when he rubs their cheeks, eyes closed with content. “At least I have you,” Merlin tells them. “I don’t _need_ anyone else.”

Cath Palug makes a noise that Merlin interprets as agreement, so he scratches their cheeks a little faster, smiling at how quickly they fall to sleep in his lap, curled into a tight ball of comfort.

He doesn’t _need_ anyone. But he _wants_ and he craves and he wishes he was _normal,_ if only so he could experience love like everyone else.

Is that so wrong of him?


	4. Mac an Luinn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing DW does will ever top my ideas and HC's around Saber Fionn and that's just facts

Fionn’s sword was a simple thing. The guard and handle were designed intricately, such that they took the appearance of water around his hand - a loop guard that went from cross to pommel -, and if you gripped it incorrectly it would no doubt slice your fingers with the tiny, near imperceptible barbs hidden in small grooves. Engraved proudly upon the pommel stood the Fenian Cross, bright and golden. 

The blade itself was elegant, with blue runes down the entire length of the fuller, glowing harshly against the blade’s silver.

Mac an Luinn appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be a rather simple sword. Fionn preferred it that way. Mac an Luinn, much like the waves themselves, could take on many forms at Fionn’s request - this one just happened to be his personal favourite, and thus it became the default, the distraction and the judge.

Still, Fionn finds amusement in watching his new-found friends try to lift the sword, finding it curiously heavier than it appears. But, well, it _is_ a sword made for giants, isn’t it?


	5. Theoretics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Achilles getting mad that Diarmuid, theoretically, wouldn't sleep with him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just dumb boys being dumb

“Theoretically,” Achilles says, splayed out on the grass with a few cans of empty beer strewn around him, “would you sleep with me?”

Diarmuid, sitting next to him, pauses in his langorous stretch and gives him, in fairness, a very cautious and quizzical look. “How _theoretical_ is this question?”

Achilles huffs a breath and rolls his eyes. “Just answer it,” he says. Patroclus mutters something under his breath that Achilles doesn’t quite catch, but knows with experience is something insulting, so he kicks Patroclus in the shin for good measure. 

Cu is sitting on one of the rocks by the river, fishing as is his usual want for a past-time, but his head is cocked to the side to show he’s listening.

“No,” Diarmuid says, “absolutely not.”

Frowning, Achilles sits up on his elbows to give him a dirty look. “Why not?”

“Oh my god,” Patroclus groans, “don’t start. Let it go.”

“No,” Achilles sulks unrepentantly, “I want to know why he wouldn’t.”

Diarmuid gives a noise that’s halfway between a sigh and a groan, as if he’s been _greatly_ burdened by _all_ the world’s ills. “Where did this even come from?” he mutters, which is a fair question and one that Achilles doesn’t really know the answer to, only that he’d thought it, briefly, and then it had nagged at him until he’d needed to know the answer.

For some reason he’d thought Diarmuid would’ve said yes and the fact that he _didn’t_ is a great _wound_ to Achilles’ ego. “Give me one good reason,” he insists, “that you wouldn’t sleep with me.”

“Because that would mean sleeping with Patroclus,” Diarmuid answers blandly.

Patroclus, taking that as a great insult, squawks a very high-pitched, “excuse me!?” head whipping so fast in Diarmuid’s direction it’s a marvel he doesn’t break it.

Diarmuid shrugs and begins examining his nails. “It’s nothing against you, of course,” he says.

“Of course,” Cu snickers just loud enough to have Patroclus glare daggers into his back.

“I just don’t tend to take more than one partner at a time. Too much mess,” Diarmuid tells them, voice slow and lazy.

Well. Achilles supposes that makes _some_ sense at least. “Alright,” he nods, “so, theoretically, if Patroclus wasn’t in the equation -”

“Hey, hey, what the fuck do you mean -”

“ - if Patroclus wasn’t in the equation,” he repeats, louder this time to drown out his boyfriend’s protests, “would you sleep with me then?”

Diarmuid gives him a very funny look. “…I’m single and monogamous if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’m not going to dump Patroclus just to date you and then sleep with you!” Achilles protests, face flaming suddenly, “I’m just saying if, theoretically, we weren’t together and I was _completely_ on the table would you -”

“If I had to sleep with one of you or neither of you,” Diarmuid starts and _yes, finally,_ he’s going to - “I’d sleep with Patroclus.”

Achilles’ jaw drops open and he tries, valiantly, to offer some kind of response but all that comes out is very garbled, offended noises. Patroclus, the bastard, whoops and hollers in delight at his “victory,” despite not being an initial part of this question to begin with.

Cu chimes in with an amused, “guess Gilgamesh is out of the equation too then,” and Diarmuid goes very _very_ still.

He can’t have. _Gilgamesh?_ _Of all people?_

Slowly, very slowly, all three of them turn narrowed eyes in his direction and Diarmuid has the decency to squirm and look at least _partially_ chastised. “…I slept with them seperately if it helps,” he mumbles.

“You slept with Enkidu, too!?” Patroclus manages, somehow, to hit a note so high it was previously unrecorded and Achilles immediately mourns the hearing in his right ear.

“Oh so you won’t sleep with _me_ because I’m not single but you’ll sleep with _them,_ ” Achilles grouses _far_ too hotly for something that was meant to be a _theoretical_ idea.

Cu’s eyes widen with some kind of horrified realization and Diarmuid clears his throat very awkwardly. “Oh my god,” he whispers in scandalized tone, “you had a threesome with them too, didn’t you?”

“Well -” Diarmuid’s face goes through a series of very pained and complicated expressions, finally settling on one of defeated resignation. “Well,” he offers, “they were very persuasive.”

“Gilgamesh,” Cu repeats, sounding faintly like he might pass out from the shock alone. “You’re dead to me,” he announces, “I can’t be friends with you anymore.”

“It was only once,” Diarmuid offers weakly.

Achilles sneers. “Oh, of course it was. Once by himself and once with his royal add-on. That’s twice, actually, if you can do the proper math.”

“Was it good?” Patroclus asks after a long moment.

“I mean,” Diarmuid replies, shrugging, voice strained a little, “kind of yeah but the first time was a hate-fuck so.”

Cu contemplates this for a second, nods, and says, “that’s fair actually. You’re forgiven for that one.”

“The second was with Caster. If that…helps any.”

“You know what it does, actually -” Patroclus cuts himself off once the meaning behind that statement catches up to him and then - “wait you hate-fucked _Archer?_ When!?”

Diarmuid’s eyes close and his face pinches up as if he’s all but begging for death. “During the war,” he mumbles. 

“I’m going to kill you,” Achilles decides, oddly calm, “and I won’t feel the slightest bit upset about it.”

Diarmuid nods once, sighs again. “Yeah,” he says, “that’s fair.” 


End file.
